Verstappen doesn’t see Red Bull winning yet
As the 2017 Formula 1 season gets underway, the young Red Bull driver doesn't think his ride will allow him to aim for victory in the first half of the season.
While the regulations favor aerodynamics, observers expected a lot from Red Bull, which has demonstrated great expertise in this area, notably through its engineer Adrian Newey. However, despite a reliability handicap, the Austrian team’s RB13 was only the fourth fastest car during the winter tests, behind Ferrari, Mercedes, and even Williams. Although the top 3 in recent years has consisted of the first two mentioned teams and Red Bull, this may not necessarily be the case for the first race. This is, in any case, the opinion of Max Verstappen. “We have to wait to see our level. Personally, I don’t think we can fight for victory at the moment,” he stated to the Dutch newspaper “De Telegraaf.”
“Ferrari has also been fast in previous years, but this year, you can see that they have made a real step forward, they will surely fight for victory”. The year 2016 saw Red Bull surpass Ferrari in pure performance, then in the constructors’ championship standings during the year, securing two victories, unlike the Scuderia which had to settle for a few podiums, never climbing to the top step. But while the Dutchman thinks Ferrari will be in the fight for victory, he doesn’t forget the team that has dominated the discipline in recent years: “Mercedes will always be on top – they must have partly hidden their game. That’s what happened in recent years.”
Regarding his own car, driver number 33 does not know where his Red Bull stands in the hierarchy: *”After the qualifying in Australia, we will know our real level. We will not go there thinking that we cannot aim for pole.”* And even if Max Verstappen believes that the RB13 will not be able to fight for the victory, he recalls the 2016 season: *”Let’s hope that we will be able to get back into the rhythm [of the best], like last year. We can be stronger this year, but we will have to work hard to achieve it.”*
In order to reach the level of the best, Red Bull will also need a Tag Heuer engine on par, particularly in terms of reliability: the Austrian team’s tests were impacted by a faulty ERS, even though the performance of the Renault power unit seems to be better than expected.
